The Book of the Duchess is an
elegy apparently written at the request of the Duke of Lancaster,
John of Gaunt concerning his first wife Blanche, who died from
the plague on September 12, 1368. The dream narrative gradually
moves towards the realization of Blanches death with a
series of questions posed by the inquisitive dreamer. The
mourning knight tells the dreamer that he blames fate for his
misfortune. Typical of medieval literature, the knight feels that
some larger force is to blame for his misery. Chaucers
focus on fate and fortune in The Book of the Duchess should
not be surprising; he relies heavily on Boethius Consolation
of Philosophy in a number of his works. Boethius explains
that fate is reality carried out in the course of human time.
Blanches death is an example of what must come to everyone;
fate, as depicted in Book of the Duchess, will inevitably turn on
everyone.

The poem addresses death directly in line
479 when the knight is speaking out loud to himself,

"I have of sorwe so gret won
That joye gete I never non,
Now that I see my lady bryght,
Which I have loved with al my myght,
Is fro me ded and ys agoon.
Allas, deth, what ayleth the,
That thou noldest have taken me,
Whan thou toke my lady swete,
That was so fair, so fresh, so fre,
So good, that men may wel se
Of al goodnesse she had no mete!"[1]

The knight speaks to death, an envoy to
fate, not understanding why death must take Blanche his treasure
away from him. The elegy has meaning to everyone who realizes
that all earthly beauty must subside, but the soul which belongs
to God will transcend to heaven if it receives the proper care.

After the knight and the dreamer have
conversed about the knights sorrow and pain (without the
dreamer exactly knowing what is ailing the knight) the knight
states in line 1309 "She ys ded!" Then the poem quickly
comes to an end.

The Book of the Duchess does not
end with a consolatory remark, alluding to Gods divinity,
the beauty of heaven, or the reward one will receive after death.
One would expect to read at least several lines about the good
fate of the duchess to console the knight and to reinforce the
objectivity of earthly existence. Instead, the poem quickly ends
forcing one to see death as the knight does, as the sudden
disappearance of existence. Since Chaucer was writing about a
real duchess at the request of John of Gaunt, he might have felt
inclined to emphasize the knight's grief by closing with the
image of the mourning knight. It would have been interesting if
he had chosen to close with an image of Blanches eternal
existence in heaven with God which would reinforce the notion
that death is not the end of life.